


Play

by Skylark



Series: HSWC 2013 [11]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Blood, Crocker Tier Jane, Depression, F/F, Mentions of Character Death, Mentions of emotional/psychological abuse, Mind Control, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-01
Updated: 2013-07-01
Packaged: 2017-12-16 20:01:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/866040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skylark/pseuds/Skylark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After your day's tasks are completed, the two of you play hide-and-seek. —Jane ♠ Condesce.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Play

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: "The easiest way to sleep at night / Is to carry on believing that I don't exist" - Radiohead, "Permanent Daylight"

Even thinking about escaping causes your body to lock up, but you can still play: you're her children, after all, she'd never rob that from you. So after your day's tasks are completed, the two of you play hide-and-seek.

You climb winding stairs to the tops of the highest Dersite towers, or descend into the deepest caves and cellars. You curl up in the smallest hiding places you can find and lay in wait. Gray dust streaks across your crimson clothing and your breathing slows until your chest barely rises. Your pupils dilate to take in the darkness until you close your eyes, because there's nothing to see in the long-abandoned places you choose. Your mind fills with the dripping silence, and sometimes images pass across the dark screen that your mind has become: Jake's terrified face as you grab him in a headlock; Roxy huddled in a corner of her Dersite cell, her head buried in her folded arms; Dirk's orange text flashing across your screen before the walls caved in around you all; your father's look of disappointment as he slammed your bedroom door behind you.

_She's the one who caused this, she's the one who's responsible,_ you tell yourself.

You imagine her death. Not by your hand, because thinking that would hurt, but it isn't treasonous to imagine a possible outcome; it's just treasonous to prefer it. So you don't, you tell yourself you don't. You simply spend an inordinate amount of time imagining what her corpse would look like: fuchsia blood coating her golden baubles, painted claws curled with rigor mortis.

You stop when you feel hatred begin to bubble up through the hollow numbness you normally maintain. If you let that go on for too long, the coding will assert itself again. You love your grandmother, don't you? Of course you do. You return to hating yourself instead, and the warning feeling in your throat subsides.

Eventually, exhausted, you turn your thoughts back to the empty darkness. It's eminently preferable to anything your faulty mind could conjure. At least you know it's voluntary this time when let your mind be wiped clean. At least you can pretend that the damage can be undone.

Hide-and-seek is only a farce, in the end. Your grandmother will never come looking for you; she needs only to snap her fingers and your body will fly to her side. You're still a puppet on a string, but at least when you hide, you can pretend this isn't happening, that you don't exist. Maybe, if you persist for long enough, it will come true.


End file.
